more than just a know-it-all
by Arasulgil
Summary: Hermione Granger was everything but ordinary. A collection of drabbles.
1. desire

A/N:School:Beauxbatons

Year:5

Theme:Expecto Patronum

Prompt: Mirror of Erised

Word count:1527

Notes:This takes place at the beginning of the 5th year. I've tried to make it fit in with canon;please read and review!

* * *

Hermione couldn't sleep.

It figured, though. She'd never been the best at adjusting to new places, and this was no exception.

Why was the bed so lumpy? Her blanket was worse, if possible; it felt rough and itchy.

Well, she reflected, it was only the second week of the new term. After sleeping for a month on her own bed, it undoubtedly would feel uncomfortable.

She sat up, exasperated. This absolutely would not do: she had school the following day!

Something was troubling her, she felt. Had she forgotten any homework?

With a feeling of growing dread, she remembered that she'd not done her Potions homework.

_How is that possible?_ she wondered, hurriedly swinging her legs over the side of her four-poster bed. _I finished all the work I had been given, plus those Transfiguration and Charms essays! Am I imagining things?_

When she reached the common room, she realized why. She'd left her books in the Potions dungeon.

_I can't get it now. It's too dangerous, with all the security that's on this place .I'll be caught and expelled for rule-breaking or something even worse._

But she had to: she had a Potions class next morning, during the first period of school. Snape would skin her alive if the "insufferable-know it all" forgot her homework. She gritted her teeth at the memory.

Even worse, Gryffindor would definitely lose at fifty points (if they were lucky). She couldn't let that happen: what would the House say if a _prefect _lost them fifty (or more) hard-earned house points? What if they lost the House Cup this year because of her?

She had to, she decided. She needed to get her books and do it immediately.

With her mind made up, she cast a Disillusionment charm on herself before stepping out through the portrait hole.

The castle was eerily dark. She lighted her wand once she reached the dungeon level, hoping Filch wasn't around; its light cast midnight blue shadows on the cold stone walls.

At the sign of a light from Snape's dungeon, she whispered,"Nox", more than a little surprised.

Cautiously, she peered around the entrance.

There was no one in the dungeon; her books weren't there either. But the most unnerving thing by far was the silvery animal softly prancing around the room.

She walked closer….it was a doe.

It was beautiful, almost lifelike, bluish-silver and soft. It came to a stop and landed near the door, almost as if it could sense the girl hiding nearby. _A Patronus, _she remembered. But why would it be here? There were no Dementors nearby… were there? She could feel its warmth through the chill the dungeon's stone walls emitted; it was reassuringly comforting. She reached out a hand to stroke it, and it nudged her hand with its smoky nose before dissolving into nothingness.

At the sound of footsteps from outside the dungeon, she fled.

~ooOOOoo~

As she walked up and down the corridor in front of the Room of Requirement, she thought desperately,_ I need the place where things left behind are found._

The door opened, and she stepped in.

The Room was full almost to bursting: old cloaks, books, hats and many more forgotten items lined the walls. Thankfully, her books were on a chair near her.

She grabbed them and was about to leave when a glint of light caught her eye; she followed it to a corner of the Room.

It was a mirror.

She approached warily: things in the Wizarding World were commonly dangerous to the unwary user. However, this one looked harmless. As she advanced towards it from the side, she caught sight of the sentence that had been elegantly carved into its frame: _Erised srta ehru oyt ube cafru oyt on wohsi. _She tried translating it in every language she knew, but the sight that met her when she stepped in front of it stopped her in her tracks.

In the middle of it, she stood tall; different, yet similar. Her hair was sleek and loose, her posture confident. She was surrounded by girls. They did not look familiar to her, but they all seemed to like her: they were caressing her mirror-figure, laughing and chatting. She seemed to be one of them.

Looking at it, in that brief moment, she felt content. She felt warmth filling her up, rolling through her chest, filling her with contentment and hope and promise, a feeling she had never experienced before.

She read the sentence backwards, and understood.

A single tear rolled down her cheek.

* * *

_A few weeks later, at a DA meeting_

"Today, we'll be working on producing Patronuses," Harry announced to the group at large.

"Think of your happiest memory…"

A few minutes later, Hermione realized, with growing frustration, that her Patronus was refusing to appear.

Half an hour into the practice, a smoky figure emerged from the tip of her wand-not corporeal, but it was something.

"What's the matter?" Ron inquired at the next meeting, watching his doggish Patronus circle the room. The fact that he had succeeded in casting the Patronus Charm fairly quickly was a point of envy to many, but he did have an uncanny ability at perfecting many charms Harry had taught them; he insisted that it was all because of the brilliance of his teacher. "I've never known you to have trouble casting a spell!"

"Ron, lay off," said Harry, sensing Hermione's disappointment. "Anything wrong, Hermione?"

_Of course something's wrong! Voldemort's wreaking havoc out there, and I can't even get this spell right! But you boys never understand, do you? _"It's just taking some time," she replied smoothly, trying not to seem too worried. "I'll get it in the end."

Harry adjusted her grip on her wand slightly and commented softly, "What memory were you thinking of?"

Caught off guard, she stuttered, "The day we won the House Cup."

"I tried that once," he said. "It didn't work very well, believe me. Have you tried remembering the day you got your Hogwarts letter and realized you'd be coming here? That worked for me." He grinned and walked away to help Cho.

She did remember that day. Since she was Muggle-born, one of the Hogwarts teachers-Professor Sinistra, who taught Astronomy-had come to explain to her parents exactly what Hogwarts was about.

At first, she'd been sceptical, like many others: how could a simple girl like her be a witch? However, things had started falling into place, like how the girls who had teased her about her crooked teeth when she was nine had fallen and injured her knee hardly thirty seconds later. She had started believing, and by the end of the day, her parents had been convinced too.

But that hadn't been the best part.

At her old school…well, she had _some _friends, but very, very few. Most people had preferred to steer clear of her, maybe because the teachers liked her, she outshone them, or because of the simple fact that she was shy. She had always been shy. It was a part of her. Because of that, she'd been teased, left out from games and much more. When there were activities in which the students had to work in pairs, some children preferred to work alone, rather than with the "shy, awkward girl that no one really knew." Honestly, she couldn't blame them: it was true. But that didn't mean it didn't hurt.

Now, she had gotten the chance to escape, to leave that all behind her, to try to be more likable and make new friends. She could forget that she'd ever been called a bookworm, antisocial or awkward. Most of all, it would be a fresh start.

She still remembered that feeling: soaring happiness that filled her to the brim.

With a smile on her face, she flicked her wand. "Expecto Patronum."

A slender silver otter swam out.

* * *

_Two years later, at the Ministry of Magic_

Dementors were everywhere, filling the room with their paralyzing coldness. Mrs. Cattermole looked on the verge of fainting; Harry's stag bounded leagues, but it wasn't enough.

"Come on, Hermione!" he yelled.

She had tried every happy memory in her possession. Memories of her birthday parties, the little things Ron had done for her, how Mrs. Weasley had always looked after her, even her brief relationship with Krum. Nothing worked.

At the moment, screams swum into her head, thick as water, threatening to drown her. Everything bad she'd ever done or had been done to her, _every single thing, _even the memories at the back of her head, the hidden ones, came out.

_Her grandfather, moaning in pain as he took his last breath._

_Dumbledore, dead, lying on the grass in front of the Astronomy tower._

_Ron's voice. "No wonder she's got no friends."_

"_Freak. Insufferable know-it all."_

Was it worth fighting? Why was she, an innocent Muggle-born fighting?

Her brain latched on to the memory: the perfect one. Her reflection in the Mirror of Erised, surrounded by friends.

_Because it's true: I chose to move on. This war is worth it. Our lives are worth it._

"Expecto Patronum!"

She smiled, relieved, as her otter joined the stag.


	2. time

When Professor McGonagall calls her, she's scared to the bone. Her greatest fear is being reprimanded by her Transfiguration teacher, and as she walks to her office, she mentally rewinds everything she did the previous term, sifting through to check for any mistake she might have made, any wrong thing she might have done without knowing. She doesn't come up with much.

They reach the office. She's offered a biscuit, which she refuses, because her stomach is churning with anxiety. But then her teacher explains the situation: she's taking too many subjects, and if she's still absolutely sure she wants to take them all, the only way is to use a Time-Turner. She's read about them, but it's still half a dream to be allowed to have one. So she listens, half in a trance, as its rules are explained to her. She knows it is equipped with a charm that will take her back past five hours, and that it's impossibly difficult to get hold of one.

Her professor stops and looks her in the eye. "Please use it only for your classes," she says, placing the delicate hourglass in Hermione's hand. "The Ministry doesn't give out one of these easily. I had to specify that you are a model student, reliable, a person who could be trusted to use it only for its purpose."

"Yes, Professor," she says.

She frowns; her voice gets quieter. "It is easy to say yes now, when there is no temptation, but you must never use it for the wrong purposes," her teacher says. "It has ruined many lives before you. You are a smart girl; you must understand the allure the power to alter time could have to many people. Please use it wisely."

She nods, fastening the delicate clasp around her neck. She looks at the fragile glass for a moment. For such a tiny thing to have the power to change time was frighteningly remarkable.

She tucks the hourglass down the front of her robes, thanks her professor, and heads off to the Great Hall.

Her first class requires the use of the Time-Turner: Divination and Study of Ancient Runes. She doesn't have a very high opinion of the former, and Professor McGonagall made it clear that she didn't think Divination was a subject worth using a Time-Turner on, so she decides to do that first so she'll have her mind clear for Runes.

The class is worse than she expected. She'd pretty sure the so-called teacher is a fraud: most of her predictions don't seem rooted in any scientific or magical method, nor does she have any explanation for why things happened except that they just happened. She runs out of the stifling room as soon as the class was over, putting her book into her newly-mended bag and making sure she's out of sight before turning the hourglass carefully.

It feels better than travelling by Floo, but a bit stranger, watching the blurs of colour and sound around her as the world moves one hour back in time. She waits till it stops before making her way to Runes.

When she's sitting in the dormitory that night, a commotion arises over Lavender losing a watch she'd kept on her bed. She says it was there an hour ago before she went down for dinner, and has to be escorted to the common room, where Parvati desperately tries to calm her down with little success.

She feels uncomfortable. One twist of her Time-Turner and she could find out what happened to it. Her hand reaches up to the hourglass and she resists the temptation with the greatest difficulty.

She now understands why the Ministry would be so worried. If she, a normally disciplined person, can't control herself, what would the world be like if someone else got hold of it?

That rather disturbing thought rolls in her head as she falls asleep.


End file.
